


what's needed

by eugyne (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Character Study, GIVE SHIRO THE SUPPORT HE DESERVES, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Post-Season 2, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sign Language, kiiiind of. its more like 1+6 if you count the black lion. youll see..., not beta read bc its really short sry, this is my theory for why shiro disappeared i guess, weird quintessence shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 00:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10502511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eugyne
Summary: The one time Shiro gives everything to his team... and thefivesix times they give it back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i dunno how to describe this thing tbh. it kinda started out as meta/a rant against shiro as Space Dad (let him rest!) so the style is... a little weird? also i may have a kink for lance talking shiro down from a panic attack lmao
> 
> ps. [here's some basic sign language as used in this fic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfulRBJ-bb4) but you dont have to watch this to understand :o

Shiro is maybe a little too willing to help.

It's not that he can't say no; he can. Not every want is reasonable, let alone feasible, and he can be rational about his own capabilities. The drive to help, to be needed, to make people happy, though—it never goes away. It's a pull, a little tug in his brain.

It gets him a reputation as the best gifter in his friend group, anyway. It puts an impressive amount of volunteer work on his resume. It makes him a shoulder to cry on for the people he cares about, the cadets he tutors, anyone at all.

It's how he befriended Keith; he saw him sitting alone, eating alone, studying alone, and decided he needed a friend. And Shiro has always wanted to be what other people need.

It's why he went to Kerberos; Matt had complained about the potential pilots for the mission, citing this and that flaw that would make it impossible for them to live together in a small enclosed space for months. It was one thing to send one freshly-graduated kid on a mission like that as a scientist, another to choose another as _pilot,_ but he applied anyway. He had the skills, and he already knew the Holts, and the look on Matt's face when he was accepted made it all worth it.

It's why, when he found himself back on Earth and then back out in space with hardly the chance to breathe, and Allura said that Voltron needed a decisive leader and looked to him, he accepted the role without hesitation before he even knew if he could _be_ that leader.

Shiro has always wanted to be what other people need.

But maybe his ability to distinguish between what is reasonable, what is feasible, and what is neither of those things, had been compromised while he was with the galra.

He holds it together, mostly. He's constantly tense, stretched thin like putty, and sometimes the flashbacks paralyze him, but he holds it together. He gives the other paladins orders, he helps them train, and sometimes, when he shucks off the weight of leadership for a while, when they have carved out a pocket of safety in the relentless flow of time, he can be their friend.

But the first time Lance jokingly calls him "Dad" he looks around at his companions—they're all kids, he's just a kid, every single one of them is so _young_ —and wonders, _is that what they need?_

The little tug in his brain says, _out here, alone, they need emotional support. They need you, Shiro._

Another part of his mind—the weak part, he thinks—just wants to crawl into some dark space, or the cockpit of the black lion, maybe, and cry and cry. He doesn't listen to it.

It does not occur to him that maybe he needs support too.

So, he offers every last piece of himself to his team. His shoulder to cry on, his ear to talk to, his words to comfort. Even to Allura, he offers himself.

He begins to feel... temporary. Like he's hurtling rapidly to an end, sucked in towards some event horizon past which he'll finally be able to _breathe._

He gives himself to his lion, too. He tells Keith to lead Voltron in case something happens. He fully _expects_ something to happen, he just doesn't know what or when.

The battle they plan with the Blade of Marmora seems an appropriate ending, and he ignores the nagging feeling it's not the one he's been waiting for. If they defeat Zarkon, the war is over, right? There will be a lot left to do, but he'll be able to breathe.

He gives his all in the fight, gives and gives and gives until when Voltron breaks apart and the battle is won there is nothing of him left.

* * *

The first one to give back is the black lion. She lets him have his soul, his quintessence, whatever it is. His consciousness. She has to anyway, to let Keith have her, but she would have done regardless. She is the only one to know what Shiro has given, yet.

He also gave her trust, and in return she trusts him. She gives him the drive to pick up the pieces.

In this state he's all but a ghost. The lions know he's there, and the mice, and sometimes he could swear that Allura or Coran look at him instead of through. His paladins, his friends, they cannot see him. He sits behind Keith in the black lion and watches him struggle under the weight of leadership that Shiro placed on his shoulders, and it tears him apart—except that he's already in pieces.

He can't be there for him, for anyone.

Allura is the second to give back, though she doesn't know it. "I wonder if I asked too much of him," she says aloud, and then starts, because Shiro has been standing in front of her the whole time, wishing he could be seen.

"Shiro?" she asks, but then her eyes unfocus, and she blinks, and she looks around.

"What is it, Princess?" Coran asks.

"Nothing," she says, shaking her head. "A trick of the light."

"It wasn't, I'm here," Shiro tries to say, but he can't make a sound.

Allura is tense, after that, and Coran too, because they both sometimes _see_ him and not just sense him; the paladins seem to know he's there too. Lance starts claiming the ship is haunted.

He wishes he could tell them it's only him, he's here, but instead everyone is on edge and it's his fault.

Pidge is the next to give back, because they finally find Matt among a group of rebels. Shiro wishes he could be there, actually there, to apologize.

"Shiro would be so happy to see you're safe," she says, when everyone is safe aboard the castle-ship again.

"He probably saved my life, you know," says Matt.

"I know," says Pidge. "He deserves to see it was worth it. I wish he was here."

"But he is?" says Matt. "He's right—" He cuts himself off as he looks to where Shiro is standing, and blinks. "That's funny. I could've sworn I saw him. Where is he?"

"I think he's haunting us," says Lance.

They tell Matt he disappeared. They tell him they all think they've seen him, but the moment they look, he's gone. Shiro watches the whole conversation from a few steps away, as Matt's eyes flick between the paladins and Shiro's approximate location.

"He's definitely there," he says finally, looking at a point on the far wall, some ways to Shiro's left. "I can see him out of the corner of my eye. Right there."

He points. Everyone looks... then looks away. There's a chorus of noises, surprise and fear; Shiro waves tentatively, and the chorus sounds again.

And then they start asking questions, all overlapping each other and never looking at him. It's disconcerting. He tries to speak but no one hears, so he just throws up his hands and waits until they stop yelling. They do, eventually.

Things change now that they know for sure he's here, even if he can't communicate. Hunk knows a little sign language, tries to teach him to fingerspell—and succeeds, technically—but it proves impossible for him to see what Shiro is signing when he has to watch out of the corner of his eye, let alone for everyone else that just learned it too.

"There's gotta be some way we can help you," Hunk laments.

Shiro can only shrug. He's sort of figured it out by now, but he still can't bring himself to ask for anything, even if he could.

It's not really a surprise, though, when Hunk's eyes flicker over to him and stay there, widening. Hunk's been giving back in his own way, after all.

Something flickers across Hunk's face then, as he meets Shiro's eyes for the first time in a very long time—understanding, maybe. Maybe not. Of course, when he reaches over to him it turns out Shiro is still totally insubstantial; his hand falls right through Shiro's arm.

"Ew," he says, examining his hand like he'll find ectoplasm or something (there isn't any) and it makes Shiro laugh. Soundlessly, but Hunk grins back all the same.

Of course, now that they all _can_ look right at him, they do—a lot. And maybe Shiro talks himself into seeing some kind of expectancy in their gazes, or maybe it really is there. And maybe he really desperately now wants to be whole again, because what else could they want from him, in this state?

But he still can't ask for the help he knows he needs, even now that he can painstakingly spell it out with his hands.

The result is that the corner of his brain that drives him to hide away somewhere dark eventually wins out. It's a difficult task nowadays to get away from the others—there's someone watching him almost constantly—but once he does he heads down into the bowels of the castle, down to the hangars. The black lion will hum in his mind but she won't let him in, none of the lions will; he barely even exists.

He ends up hunched into a ball behind the blue lion, clutching at his head and breathing hard. It's not really a surprise that Lance finds him, then, but when he hears a soft "oh shit" he still starts badly. Lance looks just as startled, at first, but then his eyes grow even wider and his mouth falls open. Shiro doesn't want to know what he must look like to warrant that reaction. He recoils.

"Whoa, hey, it's just me." Lance drops to his knees even as Shiro tries to scoot away. "It's okay. Just, breathe, okay?" His hands sort of hover uselessly near Shiro's shoulders with nothing to touch.

Shiro can't say anything—he's not sure he could even if he had a voice—so he shakes his head and turns away. He can't be seen like this by the kids, especially not _Lance._ Lance, who longs for home, who called him "Dad" even as a joke, who surely looks up to him, maybe even since before the Kerberos mission—he can't see him like this.

"Shiro! It's okay," Lance murmurs, though, and his hands drift through Shiro's shoulders. "It's fine. Do you need anything? Uh, I mean, when my sister had panic attacks she'd always want water, but you're not, like... solid. Hey, can you hear me? Shiro?"

Shiro nods.

"Okay. Just breathe, okay? You're safe here."

Lance keeps talking. There's no judgement in his voice, or disappointment, Shiro realizes; concern, yes, but it softens away, leaving only gentle encouragement. Slowly, Shiro unfolds; slowly, Lance sets his hands on Shiro's shoulders again, and this time they don't fall through.

"There, see?" Lance says with a smile, as Shiro's breathing finally evens out. He rubs his shoulders slowly. "You're okay."

"Thank you," Shiro mouths, brings a hand to his chin and away. He still has no voice, but he grips onto Lance's arms and hopes he understands this means more to him than he can say.

Lance lights up, so maybe he does. "Anytime, man. Anytime."

* * *

Lance leaves him alone in the hangar again, eventually, and Shiro thinks back to when he was invisible to them all, and realizes that they'd gotten on okay without him. Well, even, once they knew he was there. Keith especially. Shiro begins to wonder if the trouble Keith had had leading the team actually had as much to do with his absence—because he missed him, not because he couldn't lead.

Shiro realizes the team had not, in fact, fallen apart without him.

* * *

Now that Shiro is solid, he can hold a pen, and so he can write—which is much faster than signing for any thought longer than "yes" or "no" or "please" or "thank you." Technically, it means he can pilot again, too, except that he can't speak, which effectively prevents him from doing so.

"Communication is vital," Allura says apologetically.

Since he can't pilot, he can't lead—that task still falls to Keith, the one to whom he's given the most. It's fitting, maybe, that he's the last to give back.

Voltron was impossible at first, after Shiro became incorporeal. When Matt joined them the green lion traded one Holt for the other, and the red lion grudgingly let Pidge in, and they had a full team again. Matt handled it fine; he'd always been more adaptable than Shiro.

But when an urgent stealth mission comes up and Matt's in a healing pod, and Pidge gets back in the green lion and sets out with only three lions for backup instead of all four, Shiro prepares himself anyway. He watches with Allura as the mission goes sour, as the four lions struggle to keep it from falling apart. He puts a hand on Allura's shoulder, and she glances back.

"You still can't talk," she says.

He gestures urgently at the battle on the display in front of them. She sighs.

"Only for Voltron," she concedes reluctantly, and he runs off to the red zipline.

There's no guarantee Red will let him in, of course; he knows this even as he makes his way down to her. He can hardly convince her with words, either, but he can't do nothing. He can't stand by and watch while his friends are in trouble.

When he gets to her, all he can do is look up at her implacable face and sign with all the desperation he can muster, _please._

He has always wanted to be what other people need, but for the first time, he wishes he wasn't needed at all.

She lets him in, but makes it abundantly clear that she disapproves and this is a one-time event only. He nods, though he doesn't know if she can tell when he's sitting inside her head.

He thought that flying again would be a relief, but he's just tense and worried and wants nothing more than to form Voltron and get this over with. Despite nearly the whole team chiding him for joining them when he's still "recovering," they do so.

He steps out of Red, back in the hangar, just in time to see Keith burst through the doors at full tilt. He stops and visibly slumps when their eyes meet.

"Yes, he's here," says Keith, before pulling his helmet off.

Oh. They were worried he'd vanish again.

He goes down to meet Keith, expecting to be admonished again, but Keith throws his arms around him instead and holds him tightly. He automatically lifts his arms to reciprocate despite his confusion.

"You're still solid," Keith notes after a moment.

Shiro squeezes him lightly in response; Keith pulls back to look at him.

"Do you know why it happened?" he asks.

Shiro's not sure whether he's asking about the solidity, or the disappearance altogether. Probably the latter, but either way, the answer is yes. He nods.

"Will it happen again?"

That's not something Shiro is sure he can promise. But he figures, as long as he lets himself lean on someone every once in awhile, he'll be alright.

So he shakes his head. Keith nods, and steps back.

"I know you like to be useful," he says, "but I think you being okay is more important."

Shiro reaches for the notepad he keeps in his pocket, but Keith stops him.

"No, wait. I know you, okay? So I know you probably feel guilty about making me lead, and you probably saw me kinda suck at it at first. But I got better, didn't I?"

Shiro can't dispute any of that. He nods.

"So, take your time, Shiro," Keith says, putting a hand on his shoulder. Shiro can't help but feel that they were once in opposite positions, that these words were once his own. "We're here for you no matter what."

And now, finally, Shiro believes it.

"Thank you, Keith," he says, voice hoarse but real. "That's all I need."

**Author's Note:**

> hey yall find me on tumbls [@maternalcube](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/) or on twitter [@arete_nike](https://twitter.com/arete_nike)


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